Cape Breton's Magazine

top would stick in the bushes--"I'11 lean it against there so it will be all right while I'm gone." I wound up the line. So when I came out, I sat down for a minute on an old log that was about, I suppose, 15 or 20 feet from me. And I had a sand? wich. I got up. I went to get the rod-- there was no fishing rod. I stopped awhile, scratching my head. I said, "I put the rod there, there's been nobody around here to? day but the old moonshiner, not a soul." 'Cause they would speak to me--there was nobody here, anyway. A nice day like this, and it's early--nobody here, and my rod is gone. Well, I strike a bit out of the old 'shine. It was pretty good stuff that he produced. And I walked back and forth on the shore. I got mad, and I began to curse and swear. Swear and curse. I took another drink of the liquor. My temper was getting built up, because nobody took that fishing rod, I know that. Well, I looked up in the sky, and I said, "God, it's all off between me and you if I don't find this fishing rod." I was getting drunk, see, and getting mad as hell. So I says, "I'll walk up and down once more." Well, I did it. When I come back down, I noticed the end of the reel sticking out underneath a log. There was a long log there, part of an old telephone pole or something. And this rod had fallen down, rolled sideways, lengthways, the way the log was, and rolled in underneath the log, which is an impossibility--but it was there. And the reel on it, how could it roll in or get in? And there was nobody there. And that was 15 or 20 feet from where I had put it. Well, I hung my head in shame, and I asked God, "Please forgive what I said and the way that I acted. Please forgive me." So I had another sandwich, a couple of more drinks, and I fished again for awhile. I got a few more trout. I was satisfied--I'm not going to clean the lake out--I had all the trout I wanted, and they were beauti? ful fish. I came home, a little bit lit up still, most of the liquor gone. The minute I dropped in the house, Catherine, my young? est daughter, was playing around the floor--she fell on the floor, blacked out. My mother picked her up in her arms and she looked right in my face. My mother was quite a believer in God, she was a real re? ligious woman, a good religious woman, but not a fanatic of any kind. She believed it for what it was worth. So she said, "Bill, what did you do today? You did something terrible today. I can see it in your face." She picked up Catherine and said, "My baby, my baby, my baby. God save my baby." Well, I ran--the telephone was in the next house--and I called. The doctor was down and a nurse came down. They got her around, got her out of the spell. She was all right after that. All kinds of tests on her, and the nurse--"We don't see anything wrong with her. We do not know what hap? pened or why she fell like that." My moth? er gave me a hard look. And that certainly taught me a lesson. I appreciate now what God has done for me, and the way he looks after me, without car? rying a lot of abuse for the little trif? ling things that go on. (35)